Not On Page 1? You Might As Well be On Page 30!

Why is search engine optimization so important? Let’s face it. Getting your web site optimized could be the difference in making or breaking your online business. Think about it. When searching Google, do you typically look past the results on the first page? Do you look on page two, three, or four? No? I rarely look past the first page either. If you are not on the first page, you might as well be on page thirty. But you don’t have to stay there, and the best way to get on the first page is by optimizing your web site.

When I tell people what I do for a living, nine times out of ten they don’t understand what I’m talking about. This made me wonder how many web site owners understand the benefits of search engine optimization. The change can be remarkable for a web site when fully optimized. Did you know that the majority of all web site visits originate from a search engine? It’s easy to see why achieving high rankings with the search engines would be critical to the success of a web site. Yet, surprisingly, only a small percentage have been developed and/or optimized for the search engines.

Optimizing your site is just the first step, and results won’t appear overnight. It will take a little while to get to the front page, even when everything is done right. The work you do on your site will have a direct impact on the time it takes your SEO campaign to get you ranked and to stay ranked. There are a number of technical reasons ranking may take a while. For instance, directories need time to approve web links and search engines must find new links and re-spider new pages.

The benefits of ranking well far outweigh the time and hard work required to optimize a site. Your intention should not be to trick the search engines into thinking your site is the most relevant. Instead, focus on actually making your site the most relevant.